What we’re reading (2/19)
“Crypto Will Devour The Stock Market” (RiskHedge). “ALL stocks will move onto a blockchain in the next few years. You won’t be buying Apple ‘stock’ on the NYSE anymore. You’ll be trading Apple ‘tokens’ on a blockchain…[t]okenized stocks are just getting started on places like FTX today. Barely anyone has heard of them. A decade from now, hundreds of billions of dollars of tokenized stocks will trade hands each day.”
“Here’s Why A Whole Group Of Men Is Being Overlooked In The Workforce” (CNN Business). “Criminal records are keeping certain workers from finding good jobs. This is particularly true of men in their 30s. More than half of that group has a history of criminal conviction or arrest that keeps them from fully participating in the labor market, a study from nonprofit research group RAND Corporation released Friday found. As of January, just over one million men between the ages of 24 and 35 were counted as unemployed, the biggest group of jobless males, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
“Gas-Station ATMs Are A Banking Battleground” (Wall Street Journal). “Banks are cutting off small-business owners who run the independent ATMs found in America’s gas stations, bars and bodegas. ATM operators say it is getting harder to find a bank willing to hold the funds needed to keep their machines stocked with cash. The banks that will work with them, ATM operators say, are jacking up their fees.”
“After Expanding In 2021, Fast Fashion May Be Squeezed Again” (The Economist). “Fashion retailers’ success last year was driven by unusual circumstances that will not last. Pent-up demand triggered a wave of “revenge buying” when shops reopened at last, in particular for “occasion wear” (jargon for pricey stuff). Shoppers’ pockets were lined with infusions of government cash. And the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin for some weaker firms, reducing competition in the crowded market; Topshop, Laura Ashley and tm Lewin went under in Britain, and Ann Taylor, Brooks Brothers and J. Crew did in America.”
“It Has Stopped Being A Good Thing To Be Friends With Morgan Stanley’s Block Trading Head” (Dealbreaker). “For the most part, it’s great to be on an equity syndicate desk chief’s Rolodex, especially if that chief is running the block trades at Morgan Stanley…It's less great to be on said equity syndicate desk chief’s Rolodex, however, when the powers that be decide that block trading may be insider-trading, and that Rolodex gets subpoenaed and the conversations flowing from it get picked over by prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
